LECCE, Diocese of. - Suffragan of Otranto; the city of L. is also the capital of a province in the Salentine peninsula. It is the heir of the ancient Iapygian city of Lupiae; politically and ecclesiastically dependent on Byzantium until the Norman conquest, it ended up being included in the Kingdom of Naples.
The Cathedral is dedicated to the Assumption. It currently has 164,000 inhabitants, of whom 163,000 are Catholics, distributed in 39 parishes, served by 180 diocesan priests and 90 regulars; 10 male and 50 female religious communities; 2 institutes of education for boys, 3 for girls, and 36 charitable institutions.
HISTORY
Criticism has demolished the arguments of the ancient historians concerning the first hypothetical bishops of this diocese. L. (Aletium-Lupiae-Lycia) can nevertheless boast the ancient origin of its episcopal see, because among the bishops who subscribed to the Constitution of Pope Vigilius for the Three Chapters (553) there appears a certain Venantius, bishop of L. At the end of the same century the see was vacant, as appears from a letter of Gregory the Great (596), who orders Peter, bishop of Otranto, to keep watch over the postulation of the successor in order to consecrate him, if need be, at Rome. And this is the only certain piece of information down to the whole of the 10th century.
Held by the Byzantines, invaded and destroyed several times by the Saracens, it found peace only with the Norman conquest (1055-71), and then the name of a bishop reappears, Theodore Buonsecolo (1057), who underwent all the vicissitudes of the twenty-year war between the old and the new rulers. After him the chronological series is complete. The following are remembered: Formosus (d. 1131), who with the help of Count Godfrey erected the Cathedral (1114) dedicated to the Virgin Assumed; Peter Guarini (1180-91) who, during the reign of Tancred, founded the Benedictine abbey of Sts. Nicholas and Cataldus outside the city; Robert Volturio or Vultorico (1210-54), who rebuilt the Cathedral from its foundations (1230) and obtained from Innocent IV the investiture of the county of L. (1252); Marco Ziani, son of the doge of Venice and nephew of Tancred; Luigi D'Aragona (1499), cardinal deacon, son of Ferrante I king of Naples; Braccio Martello, transferred from Fiesole (1552), who took part in the Council of Trent; and Antonio Pignatelli (1671), archbishop of Larissa, later cardinal and pope under the name of Innocent XII (1691).
MONUMENTS
The cathedral preserves nothing of its original fabric, after G. Zimbalo (1661-82) rebuilt it in that Baroque style which is the most characteristic mark of Salento art. The bell tower is owed to the same artist; and to him, together with Gabriele Riccardo and Cesare Penna, belong the various Baroque remodelings and the enormous decorative profusion (1549-1695) of the basilica of S. Croce, built in 1353 by Walter VI of Brienne, Duke of Athens. Richly Baroque works are also the former convent of the Celestines, now the prefecture, the buildings of the Seminary (1694-1709) on a design by G. Cino, and the episcopal palace, which still preserves some simple primitive lines (1420-28). Outside Lecce is the famous church of Sts. Nicholas and Cataldus, from which the Baroque has removed only in minimal part its composite Romanesque structure: a genuinely ultramontane interior, a dome and base ornaments with modes and forms of the East and of Apulia, a major portal with a triple ornamented band, a marvelous union of Arab-Norman art. Singular and still intact, finally, is the Basilian church of S. Maria di Cerrate (ca. 13th century), rich in sculptures and frescoes.
Bibliography10 works
Pasquale Testini
